Discussion Paper No. 195 of 2017 on Analysis of Opportunity Cost of Agroforestry among Smallholder Farmers in Western Kenya

Abstract

Agroforestry presents great potential in the restoration of agricultural land and forest base, yet its uptake by smallholder farmers in Kenya remains disappointingly low in the face of deforestation, averaging 12 per cent per annum. The purpose of this paper was to determine whether the foregone profits of pursuing agroforestry are higher than the alternative agricultural enterprise which smallholder farmers prefer to use on their land parcels. The objectives were to estimate the opportunity cost of agroforestry practices in Kenya and establish the factors determining the opportunity cost of agroforestry practices in Kenya. The study used a longitudinal research design and secondary panel data from World Agroforestry Centre Data verse, comprising of 60 smallholder agroforestry farmers residing near Kakamega Forest in Western Kenya, collected over a period of 10 years from 2002 to 2012...